Nano-fabrication includes the fabrication of very small structures that have features on the order of 100 nanometers or smaller. Although well known within the integrated circuit industry, nano-fabrication techniques may be applied in the bio-domain, solar cells industry, battery industry and/or other industries. See, for example, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2007/0031505, U.S. Pat. No. 6,918,946, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2008/0121279, Kelly, J. and DeSimone, J., Shape-specific monodisperse nano-molding of protein particles, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008, vol. 130, pgs. 5437-5439, and Canelas, D., Herlihy, K, and DeSimone, J., Top-down particles fabrication: control of size and shape for diagnostic imaging and drug delivery, WIREs Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology, 2009, vol. 1, pgs. 391-404.
Imprint lithography techniques include formation of a relief pattern in a formable layer positioned on a substrate. The substrate may be coupled to a motion stage to obtain a desired positioning to facilitate the patterning process. The patterning process may use a template spaced apart from the substrate and the formable liquid applied between the template and the substrate. The formable liquid is solidified to form features on the substrate conforming to the shape of the template that contacts the formable liquid. After solidification, the template is separated from the features and the substrate is subjected to additional processing to form functional nanoparticles (e.g., drug delivery devices, batteries, and the like).